Barium titanate nanoparticles formed by chlorine-free ambient condition sol process using tetrabutylammonium hydroxide

Barium titanate (BaTiO₃: BTO) nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized by chlorine-free ambient condition sol (ACS) process using heat reflux at low temperature of 90°C. The size distribution and morphology of BTO NPs were investigated by varying the concentration of tetrabutylammonium hydroxide (TBAH). The crystalline size of BTO NPs was decreased with increasing the amount of TBAH capping agent (average size changes from 54.3 to 38.7 nm for 0 to 0.5 M TBAH in X-ray diffraction measurement). The particle size of BTO NPs was principally controlled by a synthetic control of butyl chain of TBAH and also a steric effect of excess amount of TBAH. The dielectric constant of BTO NPs was decreased from 152 to 144 at 1 MHz after an adoption of TBAH capping agent with almost uniform dielectric loss (<0.027). But the dielectric constant of BTO NPs synthesized with various molar ratio of TBAH (0.1, 0.3, and 0.5) did not show a distinguished decrease. At the particle size range in this experiment, the dielectric behavior of BTO NPs was found to be mainly dependent on the TBAH ligands at BTO NPs formed during capping process, not on the size of BTO NPs.